Juneau

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is coming up on Monday.

It’s a day to remember the legacy of the famous civil rights leader and a national day of service, and local organizations and volunteers will host events to mark the occasion. 

The Black Awareness Association of Juneau will also host a virtual MLK Day event on Monday from 1 to 2 p.m. It’s advertised as a family-friendly service featuring soulful music and accounts from people whose lives were impacted by Dr. King. 

More information is available at baajuneau.org, where participants can also register for the event. 

The Alaska Bar Association, in partnership with the Alaska Court System, Alaska Legal Services Corporation, ACLU of Alaska, will host a free legal clinic at Ḵunéix̱ Hídi Northern Light United Church in the Flats neighborhood from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and at St. Paul’s Catholic Church in the Mendenhall Valley from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

Local lawyers, judges and legal professionals volunteer their time to help advise people on legal matters. Kevin Higgins from the Alaska Bar Association shared information about the clinic on Juneau Afternoon Wednesday. 

“Really anything can bring you in the door,” he said. “And a lot of times what we’re able to do at the clinic, you know, it’s a very limited representation. I’s not like we’re going to be coming into court with you over the life of a potential case, but we can really kind of help you figure out how to orient yourself with the court system and what steps you can take next.”

Higgins said they can help with any stage of a legal situation, including how to potentially avoid one. No appointments are required. You can find more information at alaskabar.org/MLK. Similar clinics are also happening Monday in Anchorage, Bethel and Fairbanks.

The Juneau School District Board of Education agreed to approve up to $180,000 dollars in funding to help pay for a new playground at the Dzantik’i Heeni campus in Lemon Creek.

During a special meeting Thursday, board members agreed to pull the money from an afterschool child care fund to match a foundation’s grant toward the project. The child care fund has previously been used for the district’s former RALLY program.  

Michelle Nakamura is a parent of two children at Montessori Borealis, which operates out of the campus. During public testimony, she said having a playground is crucial for children’s learning and advocated for the board’s approval of the funding.  

“Recesses where kids get their wiggles out and then come back to the classroom, ready to focus. Right now, our kids don’t have that,” she said. “They get a muddy field full of dog feces, and they’ve been making do for the last two school years.”

The Dzantik’i Heeni campus also houses students from Yaaḵoosgé Daakahídi High School and Juneau Community Charter School. The Montessori school serves students from preschool through middle school, and the charter school serves kindergarten through middle school.

All three programs moved into the building in 2024. It used to be a middle school until the district consolidated Juneau’s middle and high schools that year to address budget shortfalls.

Right now, there isn’t a playground on the campus, and that’s meant students have access to a dirt field at recess. Since the consolidation, parents of students at the campus have been advocating for a playground to be built there. But, settling on who and how to pay for it has become a thorny issue.

The playground’s price tag is about $1.3 million including design, materials and construction, according to the district. In September, the Juneau Assembly approved $735,000 in funding for site preparation. This fall, the school district also launched a “Buy a Brick” campaign to raise funding for the project. As of Thursday, the district has raised about $71,000.

The Benito and Frances C. Gaguine Foundation, based in Juneau, agreed to match up to $250,000 to help pay for part of the project. Altogether that gives the district just under $500,000 for play structure equipment, specifically. 

Board Vice President Ebett Siddon made the motion to approve up to $180,000 dollars in additional funding. 

“I think we all wholeheartedly support a playground at this campus, and I hope people can appreciate that,” she said. “Both the school board and the assembly wrestle a lot with many, many competing needs, and this is just trying to balance all of those needs.”

The board also agreed to seek approval from the city to free up additional funding for the project. The city plans to begin work on the playground this summer.

Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified Ebett Siddon at the board president.

Local master Chilkat and Ravenstail weaver Lily Hope has been awarded a national fellowship that bolsters culture and tradition across the United States.

She is one of the United States Artists awardees for 2026, which means she gets $50,000 toward her work with no strings attached. 

“It’s a wild gift to have somebody just hand you some money and say, ‘Do what you will,’” she said. “There is absolutely zero parameters on how it is used.”

The award is nomination-based. United States Artists partners with foundations and philanthropists to support artists and cultural practitioners of all disciplines. According to its website, Hope’s award was supported by the Rasmuson Foundation.

Hope found out about the grant a few months ago, and she’s been thinking of what she can do with it ever since. 

Hope has taught hundreds of traditional weavers, and she herself has weaved seven Chilkat and Ravenstail robes and ensembles, innumerable sets of earrings, face masks and even regalia for Labubus. 

Recently, in a conversation with another weaver, Hope had a realization – she wanted to think deeply about the work she wants to do. That weaver was Shdendootaan “Shgen” George. 

“I kind of had a coming to reality moment with Shgen,” she said. “And thank you, Shgen, for waking me up and being like, ‘hey, what if you made regalia for your clan members, your family and work that would stay in Lingít Aaní?’”

Hope is excited to find out what will come of that deep thinking. She closed her public studio downtown last fall to focus on weaving that will stay in the community.

Hope joins fellow Chilkat weaver Sainteen Anna Brown Ehlers, who was awarded the fellowship in 2006. Several other Southeast Alaska artists have received the grant over the years, including writer Shaankaláx̱t’ Ernestine Hayes, Perseverance Theatre Artistic Director Leslie Ishii and carver Nathan Jackson.

With the second regular session of the 34th Alaska Legislature beginning on Tuesday, it’s a good time to check in with members of Juneau’s delegation to talk priorities, predictions and plans for the session.

Sen. Jesse Kiehl (D-Juneau) spoke with KTOO’s Mike Lane about what he expects to see this year.

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Mike Lane: We’re in the studio with Sen. Jesse Kiehl. Welcome Senator. 

Sen. Kiehl: Well, thank you. 

Mike Lane: How are you feeling about going into the second regular session?

Sen. Kiehl: Well, I’m, I’m excited to have everybody come back to the capital city. It’s always, always good to have colleagues from around the state gather at the Capitol and get to work. And also, you know, catch up a little bit. Some of these folks are even friends.

Mike Lane: Is there anything that you’re looking forward to or not looking forward to in this particular session?

Sen. Kiehl: Well, I think that the biggest question is going to be, what issues catch fire and get the most traction? Crucially, the thing you always have to do has got to be a budget, right? The Constitution limits us to one year at a time. Gives us some duties — public safety, public health, managing our resources, education, couple other things. And so we we have to pass and fund a budget. And one thing I’m not looking forward to is making that balance. That’s going to be, without a doubt, one of the biggest and most difficult issues in front of the Legislature this year. That’s not new. The Governor, who has for all of his terms, stood squarely in the way of any kind of fiscal plan with a reasonable possibility of happening, has said that this year he’s proposing one. If the governor proposes something that is serious, if the governor proposes something that has a kerosene snowballs chance in Hades of passing, then that will be, I think, the primary issue of the session. If it’s something that can’t get the votes, won’t get the votes Alaskans aren’t going to support, then we won’t probably spend huge amounts of time and effort on that. I’m a fiscal plan guy. We need to stabilize the state’s resources, stabilize the state’s ability to do the basic things we all need a government to do, infrastructure, safety, education, et cetera, can’t do them on your own. And so we have a structural deficit. And with the price of oil down and looking to maybe go down further, balancing the books is going to be really brutal this year, without some revenue.

Mike Lane: With that said, are there any other pressing or urgent issues that you believe are being overlooked at this time?

Sen. Kiehl: Well, I don’t know about overlooked, right? The other thing that has the potential to take a huge amount of time is this, this 50-year dream of a gas line, and if that project gets cash or customers, if it’s got customers with a balance sheet who will sign on the line? Yes, I’m in to buy gas that comes through this pipeline. Well, then we have some very serious and major issues as a Legislature that we’re going to have to work on to make sure that gas line can happen.

Mike Lane: All right, fair enough. And we touched very briefly on the budget. Where do you believe cuts are necessary?

Sen. Kiehl: We have done a lot of cutting already. We have done a huge amount, and so we are always looking at the most efficient way to deliver government services. But Alaskans, by and large, want the services the state provides. It just comes down to that. So we’re going to dig in. We’re going to get down to the nitty gritty and talk to everybody and figure out, what is the more effective, efficient way to deliver that necessary government service, what’s the most efficient, effective way to do that. We’re talking about saving 10s of 1000s or hundreds of 1000s of dollars a year max, and that counts. We’re going to work on it. But it’s not hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s not a budget deficit. And so we will always do those things, because we always need to do the best we can for Alaskans, but that’s not going to solve our budget issue.

Mike Lane: My last question. How can Alaska secure the PFD for the next five to 10 years? 

Sen. Kiehl: Fundamentally, the most important thing we’re going to need is some additional revenue with a moderate new revenue stream, or probably it’s a couple of little streams — right? — that come together to a moderate amount. We can stabilize, we can provide public safety, good education, infrastructure. We can run roads and ferries and airports, do the things that the Constitution requires us do, that Alaskans need us to do and still have a PFD going forward.

Mike Lane: And Senator, is there anything I didn’t ask you that you’d like to touch on?

Sen. Kiehl: I’ll just say it is such a privilege to represent the capital city. This town welcomes legislators, welcomes staff from all over the state. Agree with them, disagree with them. They’r here serving the public. They’re serving their constituents. They’re here to do a job for all of Alaska. And I’m always proud of the capital city welcoming my colleagues from around the state. I’m looking forward to that happening again this year. It’s going to be a hard session. I hope it’s a productive one.

Mike Lane: It is the second regular session of the 34th Alaska Legislature, it begins Tuesday the 20th of January. Senator, thanks for joining me. 

Sen. Kiehl: Thanks so much for having me.

The business arm of Southeast Alaska’s largest tribe has earned nearly $40 million from U.S. Navy contracts in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba – money some tribal members are concerned comes from supporting immigrant detention. 

While tribal corporation leadership says their operations are separate from the detention center on the military base, what’s happening on the ground may tell a different story.

Guantánamo Bay is the site of an active U.S. Navy base with about 6,000 military personnel living and working there. It also houses a detention facility. That facility’s main purpose was to detain people accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. 

The Trump administration has been using the detention facility to detain migrants as part of its aggressive deportation policies that many deem inhumane and unconstitutional.

Tlingit Haida Tribal Business Corporation is the business arm of the Southeast Alaska tribal  government — the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. The corporation currently has a contract in Guantánamo Bay.

In 2018, the corporation’s subsidiary, KIRA, announced a contract with the U.S. Navy to provide maintenance services, port operations and waterfront administration for the base. That contract lasted until 2022. According to a government website that tracks contracts, a similar contract started two months before it ended and is set to last until February 2028. The value of the two contracts together has so far reached just under $40 million.

Tlingit and Haida said the corporation’s contract provides services to the Navy base; it does not support detention operations at the base. But some tribal members, like Clarice Johnson, have doubts about that.

Tribal involvement in Trump’s detention operations

Johnson said she’s been concerned about the contract since it began seven years ago. But when the Trump administration vowed to hold thousands of immigrants in Guantánamo, it brought new urgency to her concerns.

“It makes me ill to think of Tlingit and Haida making money off the abuse of other people,” Johnson said. “Especially those who are just looking for a better life.” 

Guantánamo Bay’s detention center has been known for human rights violations for decades. It’s also notoriously secretive.

In 2023, a United Nations investigator researched the facility and reported “ongoing cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.” The report suggested that the facility be closed. But two years later, the second Trump administration pledged to use it for migrant detention. 

In other parts of the state, Alaska Native tribal members have protested their corporations’ investments in immigration detention centers. NANA Regional Corporation’s subsidiary, Akima, has been directly investing in ICE detention operations, including in Guantánamo Bay, for years. 

In the rest of the United States, Indigenous people are questioning their own tribal governments’ involvement in detention centers.

When stories about inhumane conditions at Akima-run detention centers surfaced this fall, Johnson said she started posting in a Facebook group called “Shareholders of Sealaska,” to make sure tribal members like her knew Tlingit and Haida also had connections to Guantánamo Bay. 

“I didn’t want people to forget that whenever they’re criticizing other corporations for doing this, that our own tribe was also participating,” she said.

Her posts garnered discussion with other tribal members, who posted their own concerns. In response to public criticism, Tlingit and Haida posted a statement in early December saying the contract is “strictly limited to the operation and maintenance of multiple watercraft and port facilities,” and that the corporation is obligated to continue the work until the contract ends. 

What Tlingit Haida Tribal Business Corporation is doing in Guantánamo Bay

But Johnson is worried that some of those watercraft transport migrants to the detention center in Guantánamo Bay.

Richard Rinehart is the CEO of Tlingit Haida Tribal Business Corporation. He said it’s against taking on contracts that assist in immigration detention. 

“We don’t have anything to do with that,” Rinehart said.

Instead, the corporation contract relates to vessel operation and maintenance, he said. 

“We run a ferry that goes from the leeward side, which is where the airport is, to the windward side, which is where the naval base is,” he said. “Goes back and forth.”

However, Rinehart said he’s heard that the ferry the corporation operates is used to transport detainees. But, he said, he and his staff aren’t involved with that process. 

“There are times — I hear, I’ve not seen this — but my manager there tells me that they do come across and they’ll put somebody on the ferry. It’s usually late at night, and it’s all just their vehicles, all their staff,” he said. “They move across and they go to the airport, but we have the only ferry going from the airport to the windward side, where everything is.” 

At least 700 migrants were detained at Guantánamo Bay in the past year, and were initially flown there, according to previous reporting by NPR and the New York Times. 

In an email to KTOO in response to follow-up questions, Rinehart said he could not speak to how many migrants have been transported via the ferry the tribal corporation maintains and operates. 

KTOO could not confirm whether or not there is another way migrant detainees are transported from the airport to the facilities they are held in. 

From the corporation’s perspective, he said involvement in migrant transport is “outside our visibility and control and is not tracked, directed, or managed by [Tlingit Haida Tribal Business Corporation] as part of our contractual duties.” 

Though Guantánamo Bay is often linked with the detention facility, Rinehart says he doesn’t think a lot of people realize it’s primarily a naval base with about 6,000 military personnel. And that’s who Rinehart said the contract serves. 

Johnson said even incidental involvement in migrant detention is still too close for her comfort. 

“I understand why they want to claim six degrees of separation from ICE,” she said. “But I think that their actions at Guantánamo Bay place them in much closer proximity than many tribal citizens realize.”

And she wants to know if the tribal corporation will take a stance on migrant detention as more opportunities to profit from it arise. 

“Will Tlingit and Haida jump on the money train?” Johnson said. “Or will they actually have guidelines on which contracts they will bid on, as some corporations have?”

Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect that Tlingit Haida Tribal Business Corporation has earned nearly $40 million from U.S. Navy contracts in Guantánamo Bay. 

Residents living in avalanche-prone downtown neighborhoods got the all-clear to return home Wednesday after the city lifted its last remaining evacuation advisory this morning. 

Mary Amor was finally preparing to leave Juneau’s emergency shelter at Centennial Hall. She’s been staying there with her brother since last Friday, when the city issued an evacuation advisory for residents in all known slide paths downtown and along Thane Road.

“I know that a snow avalanche is nothing to play with,” she said. 

Amor lives on Gastineau Avenue, which borders the city’s avalanche hazard zone and has seen multiple landslides in recent years. She evacuated with her brother because they were scared for their safety. Amor is in her 60s and is disabled. 

She said living away from her home has been stressful, but she was grateful to have a safe place to hunker down.  

“It’s much a blessing, because there ain’t nowhere else to go out except outside,” Amor said. “This is a real blessing, them helping out the people that need it, in a time of need.”

Amor was one of 13 people to stay at the shelter Tuesday night, according to Britt Tonnessen, the community disaster program manager for the American Red Cross of Alaska in Southeast. She says more than 50 people used the shelter over the six days that the risk of large avalanches loomed over downtown neighborhoods and Thane. 

“The partners that came together, I think, did a really incredible job and utilized the limited resources we have in Juneau, brought in what was needed and cared for people to the extent that we could,” she said. 

The Red Cross plans to close the shelter on Thursday morning. 

Some evacuees stayed with family or friends instead, like Carlos Cadiente and his wife. Cadiente said he returned to his home in the Behrends slide path Sunday night after looking at the remaining snow on Mount Juneau and deciding he felt safe enough.

And he said he’s glad to be back.

“Oh it’s a relief,” Cadiente said. “I’m happy that the big one didn’t come down. I mean, nobody got hurt.”

But now, he said his basement is flooding, and he thinks it’s because some of the shingles on his roof are too short to shed water away from the house.

The Behrends neighborhood evacuation advisory ended Wednesday morning, after the advisory for all other neighborhoods, including Amor’s, ended Sunday evening. 

John Bressette is an avalanche advisor at the City and Borough of Juneau. He said that the city didn’t decide to lift the evacuation advisory lightly. 

“I think people can feel good about going back to their homes,” he said. 

Concern grew again on Tuesday due to winds forecasted to reach as high as 60 miles per hour overnight. 

But Bressette said the city’s new radar system did not detect any new avalanches on Mount Juneau overnight. On Wednesday morning, drone flights showed him that previously undetected avalanches at high elevations had happened earlier on the Behrends slide path, then the rain and warm air melted a lot of the snow that would have made a large avalanche possible. 

“Overall snow levels being reduced quite a bit by all the rain, especially in the lower elevations, where avalanches have a tendency to entrain more snow. There’s just not a whole lot of snow left for that to happen,” he said. 

But Bressette said people in avalanche zones should keep ‘go’ bags packed in case conditions change.